tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28006293035430793632026-02-26T03:34:02.027-08:00Love Living In Your BodyNJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-55219732739566420342013-06-01T07:38:00.000-07:002013-06-01T07:38:07.932-07:00

You are invited!

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-47535488564666044802012-10-22T14:20:00.000-07:002012-10-23T19:43:06.589-07:00

Imagine for a moment, the life that is calling you.  What does that life look like?  What does it feel like?  Where would you live?  What work would you do?  How do you get there from where you are right now?   Let these questions roll around for awhile.  What comes up for you?  You may have a strong sense of what you want and know exactly how to

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-24038537547592609852012-10-14T19:07:00.000-07:002012-10-15T10:39:35.732-07:00

What makes you happy?   What fills you with joy? What makes the world a better place? What tiny thing, often overlooked, makes you smile? What big thing, too obvious to overlook, makes you want to burst with joy? What events have served as lessons? Who are the people in your life who listen to you, show you kindness, who inspire or teach you? What would your life

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-46248027868893166152012-09-13T16:33:00.001-07:002012-09-13T17:16:15.961-07:00

Let me tell you about my last couple of weeks.  I was insanely busy.  Yes, I know.  We are all busy.  But I was REALLY busy.  I had an out of town wedding to go to, a semester of teaching to prepare for, and tons of homework and studying to do for the yoga program I was enrolled in.  I was feeling stressed, rushed and a bit crazed...so much prep, so many deadlines...

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-62702594483591864332012-08-24T07:25:00.000-07:002012-08-24T07:29:18.779-07:00

As part of our Kid's Health event at One Life Chiropractic, I had the children nominate their parents for a drawing to win a free massage session. Here is what they wrote-  (Some really young ones had a bit of help from a parent.) "My mom deserves a massage because I love her."  -Sarah, age 8 "My mom deserves a massage because she works really hard."  -Philip, age 14 "My

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-68442297663319132472012-05-27T15:24:00.000-07:002012-10-23T19:47:41.874-07:00

The above photo was taken by Renee Rischenole, Freelance Photographer/Writer/Artist and fellow student in the Essential Teacher Training at Open Sky Yoga.  You can find more of Renee's work at her website, www.reneerischenole.com.   This photo is of her morning view in savasana. Savasana, for those of you who are not addicted to it yet, is corpse pose, also known as final

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-64224720132054105542012-05-21T06:37:00.002-07:002012-10-23T19:47:54.323-07:00

The picture above is of a spine molded out of clay, made collectively during our Anatomy In Clay workhsop with Laura Antelmi, which was part of the yoga teacher training program at Open Sky Yoga.  "The mind cannot forget what the hands have learned,"  Laura told us a few times during the weekend and her words rang true.  Molding bone and muscle, layering muscles over one

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-53309246986633267312012-04-26T06:12:00.000-07:002012-10-23T19:47:25.685-07:00

I arrive at my teaching job 30 minutes early but totally exhausted and in a great deal of pain. In this moment, life seems hard. The stress of teaching- the stress of teaching while in pain. It feels like too much. I usually don’t have any spare time before class, as I run from one thing to the next. But, chance has it that I am early. I can grade papers, go over my notes, check my mail.

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-21815754183447794742012-02-27T06:58:00.001-08:002012-02-27T07:31:45.894-08:00

"dance, dance...otherwise we are lost."  -Pina Bausch I just saw the movie Pina, Wim Wenders' tribute to the legendary German choreographer.  Visually stunning,  the dancers capture the raw, visceral emotion of our human experience.  Despair, joy, pain, vulnerability- it's all in there, moving, breathing, writhing, bursting...beautiful and grotesque at the same time,

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-157180423264285652012-02-18T10:32:00.000-08:002012-02-18T10:41:48.560-08:00

Some days I find myself seeking beauty.  On sad days, worrisome days, unsettling days- I crave it.  Beauty uplifts, soothes and settles.  The beauty of the sky, a landscape, a tree provides nourishment- vital to the fullness of our human experience.   Beauty feeds us.  It opens us to possibility.  It balances us. Enjoy the poem which follows, in written form

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-59132656877524785442012-01-02T11:13:00.001-08:002012-10-23T19:44:45.975-07:00

Happy New Year! Today I mixed up a huge batch of my massage butter.   I absolutely love making the massage butter.  It is easy, fun and messy; shea butter always flies onto the counter, the toaster, my clothing.... but it's so gratifying to watch the crumbly, hard butter soften and lighten as it whips.  I love the fact that I know with certainty that my massage lotion is

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-54643558874968430582011-12-03T10:26:00.001-08:002012-10-23T19:44:13.533-07:00

They say it takes doing something seven times to establish a habit.  For me, it seems, it takes an entire year.  The particular habit that I set out to establish began with a thesis I decided to test out a little over a year ago.  My idea was that if I took time each day to reflect on the gifts and abundance in my life that it might just make a difference in my mood.

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-56669953923745395702011-11-10T13:20:00.001-08:002012-10-23T19:46:21.851-07:00

"You spend your time on what you think is important."  This, a pearl of wisdom overheard when I was giving chair massages at the Rochester Women's expo.  Serendipitously, I had recently been thinking about that very idea.  Fresh from my retreat, it came to me, as I took the time to finally face the mountains of stuff left over from my elementary teaching years, that I have been

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-6349824765984655502011-11-03T05:07:00.000-07:002012-02-16T18:10:53.254-08:00

Some time ago, I tried a challenge for myself- I did my best to try to go for a week, I believe it was only a week, without multi-tasking.  Like I said, I believe it was only a week.  It felt, however, like an eternity.  I was inspired by an article I read in which the author tried this challenge for a month.  I was inspired also by troubling multi-tasking habits that I

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-70919794942405402352011-10-12T12:44:00.000-07:002012-10-23T19:45:07.672-07:00

I have been using a photo of balanced stones as a logo for a few years now.  The stones illustrate balance beautifully and I received positive feedback about the image from most.  And although I love the image of perfectly balanced stones, they never felt 100% right in representing what it is that I do.  Beautiful, but a little too serious and a little too static, I think. &

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-29289868227345154622011-09-12T03:00:00.000-07:002012-10-23T19:46:01.660-07:00

As I was sorting through my files and re-reading old writings, I came across a piece I wrote as part of my application for massage school.  People often ask me why I chose to become a massage therapist.  Below is the story of that first moment, the seed that eventually led to that decision, many years later. There was a defining moment in my life, when I was in

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-17149277871177998952011-09-06T03:00:00.000-07:002012-06-17T05:26:11.351-07:00

This past Thanksgiving marked the launch of my year long gratitude project.  Every month, I have invited someone to join me in exchanging a list of daily gratitudes for the entire month.  It has been a remarkable experience.  Although reluctant at first, my August gratitude buddy turned out to be a most enthusiastic participant; it didn’t take long for him to understand how

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-82885463857698924222011-08-16T06:10:00.000-07:002012-10-23T19:47:00.284-07:00

Birthday time! I just turned... older. And perhaps a little wiser. To prove the wiser part to myself, I decided to try to identify a few life lessons I learned this year.  Here it goes, in no particular order, unless you count the order that they popped into my disorganized brain.  Random order, then. 1.  It might be fun for a time to reinvent yourself, but after a time,

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-89411537457280830562011-07-27T12:45:00.001-07:002012-10-23T19:48:32.539-07:00

Massage At One Life Chiropractic One Life.  One Body.  One Choice. And now...One New Massage Therapist!  I am extremely happy to announce that I have very recently joined the friendly and professional staff at One Life Chiropractic. Located at 3300 Monroe Avenue, One Life Chiropractic features first rate health care in a welcoming and relaxing environment.  

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-24641390952295095532011-06-12T13:10:00.000-07:002012-10-23T19:50:04.665-07:00

This weekend Shannon Halligan, L-CAT and I co-led a workshop called, "Awakening to Possibility With a Traveling Pocket Altar."  I became interested in the idea of identifying and inviting change into one's life when I attended a vision board workshop earlier in the year.  During that event, as I sat leafing through magazines, cutting and pasting my collage of things I wished

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-22109816348498592562011-05-08T11:33:00.000-07:002012-10-23T19:50:27.118-07:00

My college students are required to attend dance performances and submit written responses describing what they have seen.  I was noticing that the word "unique" was coming up again and again.   This made sense to me, but I also found it annoying.  For many of my students a dance concert is a novel experience so everything is they see is "unique."  But without

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-11424828795678447152011-04-03T18:22:00.000-07:002012-06-17T05:28:57.372-07:00

Let's meet the fascia. The fascia is a network of extracellular material that runs throughout the body.  If it were possible to separate out the fascia from the rest of us, our fascia would form the same shape as we do, as it is a three dimensional web that runs throughout all our tissue.  This weekend I had the pleasure of attending a seminar in Myofascial Release. 

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-86696444081813570772011-03-11T17:11:00.000-08:002012-02-16T18:13:25.631-08:00

This week, in my elementary dance classes, we have been reading the story Giraffes Can't Dance.  This is a wonderful picture book about a Giraffe with buckling knees who wobbles and falls every time he tries to dance.  The annual jungle dance is a rather traumatic event for poor Gerald as the other animals laugh and tease him,  calling him a bad dancer. I posed the question

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-43400235435721182622011-03-02T19:20:00.000-08:002012-02-16T18:13:57.884-08:00

In January I fantasized about aggressively promoting my March challenge of dancing every day for 5 minutes.  I envisioned it going viral, spreading like wild flowers.  All I need to do is get everyone I know to forward the info to everyone they know and so on and so on and... And then February came and I totally forgot about Dance-A-Day March.  That is until March 1st, when it

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2800629303543079363.post-36739491760098573162011-02-25T19:42:00.000-08:002011-02-25T19:52:52.201-08:00

As many of you already know from prior posts, I have adopted a gratitude practice this year, which involves a daily exchange of lists of things for which I feel grateful.  This other person, with whom I exchange lists,  I affectionately refer to as my gratitude buddy.  Each month a new gratitude buddy joins me in this adventure.  This month, my gratitude buddy was

NJ Pigno http://www.blogger.com/profile/16212752943847413033noreply@blogger.com0